Sexual Scripts of Women: A Longitudinal Analysis of Participants in a Gender-Specific HIV/STD Prevention Intervention

Abstract

Project FIO (The Future Is Ours) was a three arm randomized controlled HIV prevention intervention trial carried out with heterosexually-active women in a high sero-prevalence area of New York City. The trial was effective and women in the eight-session intervention arm were significantly more likely to report decreased unsafe sex or no unsafe sex compared to controls at one month and one year post-intervention. The current investigation was a qualitative analysis of women's sexual scripts at baseline and one year follow-up for a randomly selected subsample of participants in Project FIO. We examined the domains of sexual initiation, pace setting, sexual decision-making, communication about sexual needs, and the timing of condom introductions in the experimental and control arms at baseline and one year follow-up. At one year follow-up, among both the experimental and control arms, results showed changes away from maledominated and toward female-dominated sexual initiation and sexual decision-making. Among both the experimental and control arms, results also showed that trial participants shifted from a late condom introduction (right before intercourse) toward much earlier mention of condoms (e.g. during a date). The fact that shifts in sexual scripts at one year follow-up occurred in both groups is likely reflective of the degree to which a lengthy assessment interview facilitated comfort with

Predictors of Sexual Scripts Among Young, Sexually-Active, Substance- Using African American Women

“…Consistent with previous theoretical and empirical research on AA women and substance-using women, we found that the majority of women utilized sexual scripts that aligned with high risk sex [59,70,73,75] as 56.67% reported adoption of sexual scripts that included condomless sex with sexual partners. Themes found reflect the major dimensions of sexual scripts identified by Bowleg et al These scripts correlate with cultural values placed on maintaining a male partner and support the principles posed by Wingood et al in the application of the TGP to cultural norms and sexual behaviors of AA women as it relates to perceived partner infidelity by the male partner [44][45][46]65,[95][96][97].…”

“…Several studies to date explored sexual scripts of AA women [36,49,54,55,59,72,73,75,77,94]. To our knowledge, this is the first study to move beyond the description of sexual scripts to identify and describe factors that are likely along the pathway to sexual script development among YSSAAW.…”

“…To date, these concepts have not been considered in the guiding theoretical framework of HIV prevention interventions with YSSAAW [72]. Historically, researchers have explored varied types of sexual scripts [49,54,55,57,59,[72][73][74][75][76][77]. Most recently, US-based research related to sexual scripts explored gender and sexual behavior among adolescents and college students [78,79], stigma associated with being sexually inexperienced [80], sexual scripts that tolerate sexual coercion among college students and nonconsensual sex/rape among AA and White adolescent and college women [81][82][83], hip hop media as a powerful mechanism promoting saliency of sexual scripts for AA women [84] and most related to this study was a qualitative study assessing the effects of sexual victimization history of undergraduate women on hypothetical sexual script characteristics [85].…”

The Importance and Meaning of Sexual Fantasies in Intimate Relationships

“…Despite women's automatic association between sex and submission, researchers have found evidence that women can learn to be more sexually assertive (Dworkin et al 2007), which may be particularly helpful for women who more strongly associate sex with submission, as they tend to experience the most sexual problems ). This research is promising because it indicates that sexual behaviors, desires, and fantasies are potentially malleable and therefore people can be proactive in developing a sexuality that is safe, satisfying, and representative of their authentic selves.…”

Absent sexual scripts: lesbian and bisexual women's knowledge, attitudes and action regarding safer sex and sexual health information

“…Social script and symbolic interactionist theory has been used by many researchers to explore the way in which individuals negotiate safer sex within broader cultural discourse about sexual identity, gender and sexual practice (Dolan and Davis 2003, Dworkin, Beckford, and Ehrhardt 2007, Giffin 1998, Lear 1995, Mutchler 2000. Mutchler (2000), for example, observes that public campaigns for safer-sex have influenced dominant sexual scripts.…”